BEIJING, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- The recordings of 13 plays from Britain, France, Russia and the United States are scheduled to be screened in five cities in China until September 23, as an international exhibition featuring recordings of plays opened in Beijing.

Among all the plays shown during the exhibition, seven are works of William Shakespeare, including "Hamlet," "King Lear," "The Merchant of Venice" and "Twelfth Night."

Others include the American musical "An American in Paris," the French play "Cyrano de Bergerac," and the Russian play "The Seagull" written by Anton Chekhov.

The exhibition was first held in 2017 and this year's event opened Thursday offering 130 shows at cinemas in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Chongqing.

China started to screen high-definition recordings of British plays in 2015 and later began to show those from the United States, France and Russia as well. Some 58 venues in 24 cities have screened 76 plays.